The present invention relates to devices for heating industrial and residential space areas and objects. The invention can also be used for heating glass, painted surfaces, etc., and also in agriculture for drying grains, heating life stock sheds, green houses, etc., and finally for propulsion of various machines.
Devices of the above mentioned general type are known in the art. The known devices use gas, oil, electric current, coal, furnace burning, fans for air circulation, electric heaters. The above described devices have a very low efficiency due to frequent cycling which leads to the excessive losses of heated air and combustion products escaping through chimneys and smoke stacks. The efficiency of the systems for industrial purposes ranges within 15-25%. The cost of energy for operating a blower fan constitutes over 20% of the total operating cost.
The existing electric conventional heaters use an electric spiral as a heating element and they do not uniformly heat the surrounding area. They also significantly change the chemical composition of air and reduce humidity. The conventional electric heaters have also low efficiency. The furnace burning systems are very expensive due to their required large physical size and high cost of gas, oil and electricity. The systems create one of the most serious environmental problems, namely air pollution.
More efficient heating systems have been developed. In order to increase the efficiency of the systems, U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,061 discloses an apparatus for heating and delivery of air by a fan and an electric heating element formed as a stationary cylindrical cage of spaced longitudinal air guide vanes made of an electrically resistant alloy. The air passing through the impeller and the guiding vanes of the cage is heated electrically to a required temperature. U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,606 discloses a self-starting, heat powered air heating system. It is a closed loop-type vapor generator filed by a modulating gas burner controlled to fire at a rate proportional to the demand within the space to be heated. A vapor powered turbine is directly connected to receive the output from the generator to operate at a variable speed in response to the demand level within the space. Vapor exhaust from the turbine is conducted through a condenser, where it gives up its heat and becomes liquid, and then returns the vapor generator. Air from heating a space is conducted over the condenser by a fan directly driven at a variable speed by the turbine.
Impellers or fans are always used for cooling. They are also used for providing air pressure as a carrier of air. While performing their functions, impellers and fans use up to 20% of their capacity to overcome various kinds of resistance.
The designs described above have various disadvantages and problems namely complex and costly design which includes multiple systems such as fuel circuits, environmental air circuit, electric circuit, vacuum modulating circuit for controls, resistors, etc., as well as several stages of conversion of liquid. They have low efficiency due to frequent cycling which in most industrial systems 15-25%. It has large physical size. They are characterized by excessive losses of heated air and combustion products through smoke stacks in chimneys leading to air pollutions and acid rain, they have high cost of fuel, high cost of maintenance and repair, they require one or several operators, they are characterized by significant losses of energy, and their efficiency is only 30-50%.